Welcome! Did you check your credit-card account online? Usually, charges that take a day or 2 will show up online immediately as a "pending transaction".

Thanks, Yes I checked my card online. I had two failed attempts freezing Experian online and like others I was charged the $10 anyways right away both times. They were "pending" and have dropped off as they should... but still no charge has shown up for my phone freeze which supposedly was successful.

Hi all,
I'm new here, but I just signed up as I had the same difficulties as many others posting in this thread completing the Experian Credit Freezes I needed on 2 of my family members. I've been working for the last 6 days on this night and day. I was able to lock up my 3 Credit Reports on myself after the first couple of days (9/12-9/14); and some of the other ones on Transunion online and Equifax online. Transunion was the easiest of the online ones.
Equifax was jammed for the first 4 days of this week, and on Friday 9/15 after tons of trying on multiple browsers on multiple computers, I finally got through on their website for my son's Equifax report and froze it! I was then able to get my Equifax and my wife's done on 9/15 & 9/16.
It's worth noting that I used a variety of browsers to do this; and I mostly used Microsoft Edge (W10 browser) and Chrome Version 60.0.3112.113 (Official Build) (64-bit). I also used Internet Explorer 11 for a few of these, I don't remember exactly which; but as a computer guy I'd recommend you try all your browsers if you don't get through on either the Transunion or Equifax sites. Due to the extremely high number of folks trying to do what you are doing, you definitely need patience to get through.

I also would like to repeat that the phone number posted here by a few others, 1-888-397-3742, options 2,2,1,2 worked for me on the last 2 Experian Credit Freezes I needed to get for my son and my wife. I used my Cell. phone and made a couple of typo entries on my phone keypad, but after a dial-back or two I got in and got them both completed! Less than 15 min. or so for both. Hooray! I can also confirm what the other folks who posted in this thread said about it being automated, and not having to wait hours to talk to a human being. It was quite easy, I did it at 5AM in the morning well before the business day starts in Texas where Experian is and I'd highly recommend it for others here who have gotten stuck on the Experian Freeze site.

I would also mention that during the 2nd day, while in major panic mode to lock up all my Credit reports with the 3 Bureaus on my name (which the Equifax Impact Checker showed was breached), I got my Transunion done quite easily after reactivating a 9-year old account I had with them, and they made it quite simple to Lock your Credit Report there once I could log into my Account. Equifax was a nightmare, and I gave up on it at that point hoping to get the other ones done as best I could. Making a decision (took a guess here) on Experian, I decided to buy their $19.99/mo. IdentityWorks Credit Monitoring package thinking that if I paid for it, it might be easier to lock/freeze my Experian credit report. It turns out I was right and it did work quite easily! I didn't want to pay another $19.99/mo. subscription for BOTH my son's and my wife's Credit Report freezes so I continued trying to find a free or nearly free (lower cost than an additional $480/yr.) to do theirs. When I was searching for alternatives I found your site, with all these posts of other folks who also got stuck trying to lock up their Experian reports just like me. I did have to pay $10 (I'm in California, and each state has different fees for the freeze from $3-$10, with some states being completely free. The $10 fee showed up on my Credit Card via online in just minutes, as others also stated, on my son's Experian Freeze via phone. On my wife's, since she was over 65 (66 y.o.), it took me through the same identity questions (SS#, DOB, Address, etc.) that my son's did, but at the end instead of asking me for the Credit Card again, it just said "Your Freeze Was Successful" and hung up on me. No fee has yet appeared on that Card. I will continue checking of course, as it was stated that for folks in my State (Calif.) people would either not be charged for the freeze, or only $5 fee. Unfreeze/Refreeze is also supposed to be $5.

Thanks to all of you for your helpful information on this forum, and I hope you all get your Credit Reports locked up and protected. Thanks to the Admins/Owner of this forum for providing this great information! Kudos!

I will check back periodically to see how others are doing, and update my experiences in the hope that it will help others facing this daunting task.

Nice post! And thanks for sharing your experiences similar to many of us and myself. Yes, the phone freeze method seems to be the best way to lock up your reports with Experian at least at this time, until Experian's IT department can get it together and handle the huge volume of online submission request traffic on their freeze server(s).

Glad you were able to get your Experian report locked up! It's a big relief to have that one done, especially after having gone through almost a solid week to get the other ones all done.

Just finished putting together a 3 page "how to freeze your credit reports" E-mail for all the folks in my local computer club who are trying to do what we have accomplished. Hopefully, some other folks in my community will be helped by our experiences and trials.

Best of luck to you and thanks for re-posting that phone number again for the Experian freeze line.

I immediately tried again and got the same error message, no verification questions.

Tried one last time, maybe 30 min had passed since 1st attempt, and it gave me a new set of verification questions and finally processed the request to freeze.

Thank you for reporting this! Same thing happened to me; I tried to freeze twice in a row, failed and they charged me $10 each time anyway. I waited an hour or so and tried again, they finally gave me new (different) questions and I must have answered them correctly because it worked.

Hopefully the first two $10 charges were just authorizations that won't be settled.

Am now done freezing - was able to do all three agencies online in just a few minutes of real time.

I posted earlier that I couldn't freeze DW's credits on Transunion and Experian (mine worked fine for the big 3, and DW's with Equifax).

This morning we tried again online with Transunion and DW's was able to freeze hers. Then we tried Experian again twice and got the same issue: "We were unable to honor your request to place a security freeze on your personal credit report based on the information you entered", and asked us to send information via mail.

Then we tried using the phone as suggested earlier and it worked. Now to think about it, what in the world ... ?? The phone system basically only asked for SS#, DOB, and Street number (plus CC information). When the online system asked for more (Name, previous addresses, verifications). I can't figure out how or why freezing via the phone system works better, with less information. But I guess we'll see. We're still waiting for the pin, obviously.

I registered with EquiFax immediately after the news broke, for both my husband and myself. Unfortunately I used the same email address for both of us. It was only 2 weeks later, at the very end of the process, that I saw that EquiFax uses your email address as your user name. So my account had been created, but not my husband's. After a phone call to their Customer Service, I realized my mistake and had to start the whole process over again to register my husband, with a separate email address. Finally had success the second time around. EquiFax never mentioned that email addresses needed to be unique. Has anyone else encountered the same problem, or maybe they just don't realize it yet?

After many weeks trying, Experian do not accept my information, and cannot place a freeze on my credit. I just got my PIN from Innovis, it takes some weeks and still waiting for Chexsystems. Transunion worked by phone, but Equifax... I spent many days trying to place a freeze but the system was alway busy, two weeks ago, the system accept my information just for telling me: 'we were able to locate your file, do you want to: remove, lift temporarily your freeze...' How it can be if I never was able to place it and if the system did it I never got my confirmation. I sent an email and they opened a case to fix the problem, after two weeks I receive an email telling me my case was solved. I went to the page and tried to place the freeze, but the answer is the same as before: remove, lift, etc. Now I even cannot get my free credit report
Has anyone else a problem like this?

What I am wondering is how come the phone option is easier than online? Is it because they can see the phone number I am calling from is listed with them? Or is there some other reason that they make it easier over the phone.

So here's my experience this morning:
I tried the online freeze at Experian. It failed and brought me to a page that says, "We were unable to honor your request. If you entered your credit card information, we did not charge you." I did get charged, but like others said, hopefully it'll drop off. I never got asked security questions at any point. Also, the page it brought me to with the error message made no mention of freezes. All of the options at the bottom were about ordering a credit report (Yes, I'm positive I was on the freeze page). So rather than try again online, I did the automated phone system and supposedly it was successful. Anyone know how long we have to wait for the pin in the mail on average? I'm surprised it failed because 1. I did a fraud alert with Experian online weeks ago with no problem, entering the same exact info, and 2. I have a free account with Experian, so I know they have all my correct info already.

So then I just tried Equifax, and it was quick and got my pin #. Go figure. The two I was most worried about failing (Equifax and TU) worked, and the one I wasn't worried about (Experian) failed. Does anyone have a theory on what's going on with Experian?Do you think if and when we have to unfreeze temporarily, we'll run into the same problems online?

Neither of us are on the list, but we decided to freeze our accounts, regardless. We successfully froze our accounts with the exception of my account at Experian. One of the questions to affirm identity asked if I had ever lived on a street which happens to be where my mother lived. I said, "no" as I never lived in my mother's house. I was denied. (I think they had inaccurate information about me.) So, after trying to call, and waiting nearly three hours, I hung up. Ultimately, by certified mail (with return receipt and signature), I sent a copy of my drivers license, SS #, date of birth, and copy of a current bill in my name. I was nervous sending all that information through the mail, but felt better when I got the signed return receipt and later, confirmation my account is frozen with a pin # to unfreeze it. It took quite a while to get the certified signed receipt, and even longer to get the confirmation letter, long enough, I started to get antsy.

I had the EXACT same thing happen!!! I'm checking my BoA CC daily to see if the second charge comes off. The idiot I talked to on the phone gave me a laundry list of information / paperwork to snail mail to them for a refund...nah, I'll just dispute it.

edit: just checked BoA and found that the 2nd TransUnion charge has disappeared. Lucky them

Thanks, Yes I checked my card online. I had two failed attempts freezing Experian online and like others I was charged the $10 anyways right away both times. They were "pending" and have dropped off as they should... but still no charge has shown up for my phone freeze which supposedly was successful.

Something similar happened to me. I tried to freeze online & failed, but a $10 pending charge showed up right away. Then very soon after, a -$10 charge showed up (a refund for the failed attempt). Then I went through the automated phone system, and the freeze was successful, and another $10 charge showed up pending. This is was on Sunday (2 days ago). So I assumed once everything cleared, one $10 charge would go through. Everything is out of pending now as of this morning, and there are no charges actually. I called Experian this morning to ask some questions and here were the answers:

1. Why is the online freeze system hit & miss right now, with so many people failing to do it? She said it's due to the number of requests and they are getting a lot of complaints about this.
2. How long to receive pin if freeze was done by phone? 7-10 business days.
3. She said you can attempt to do the "request a pin" form online, and if it's successful, it should show you your pin (I haven't tried...I'm afraid of it failing like the freeze).
4. As far as the actual $10 charge dropping off, she's not sure why, but on her end, she confirmed my freeze was placed and that I gave my payment info, so she said not to worry--the charge may show up on a delay.
5. She said she was able to see my pin # on her end, but they are not allowed to give it to us over the phone, even if they ask us a bunch of authentication questions to verify our identity. It must be sent by mail or recovered via the online form.

After several failed attempts to place a FREEZE online with Experian (yes, with multiple pending credit card charges), I phoned and got the automated system which also failed; i.e. I was directed to send my information via mail and hope it didn't get misused or improperly discarded. I wasn't happy with having to do that in the 21st century (!!), so I found a phone number (after trying a few) and got a live, very helpful person.

This number worked for myself and my husband. DATA Breach was the only live person who could help put a freeze on our credit with Experian:
1 (866) 751-1323databreachinfo@experian.com

They only had our old address (we moved over 3 years ago) which tells you how behind the times these credit agencies are. SCARY! That was the issue and only reason the system could not identify us and (attempted to) force us to mail all our private information. The person on the phone asked a few verification questions, updated our address and placed the freeze (after asking for credit card information). It was very quick and easy.
You can supply them with your chosen PIN or have an automated one sent. Regardless, you will get confirmation via snail mail including your PIN.

After several failed attempts to place a FREEZE online with Experian (yes, with multiple pending credit card charges), I phoned and got the automated system which also failed; i.e. I was directed to send my information via mail and hope it didn't get misused or improperly discarded. I wasn't happy with having to do that in the 21st century (!!), so I found a phone number (after trying a few) and got a live, very helpful person.

Mine failed online but was successful via the automated system (that was only a few days ago so I'm still waiting for the pin via mail). In my case (and I've read similar experiences with others), while I don't know for sure why the online attempt failed, I do know that it has nothing to do with them not having current/correct info on me. About a month prior to attempting the online freeze with them, I was successful in doing an online fraud alert with them (which requires virtually the same exact info as the freeze). Also, I have a free account with them (to view monthly credit report), so I know the info they have on me is up to date. In any case, I'm glad to hear it sounds like you got it resolved. I looked up that number and I'm surprised it worked because that number brings up a business section of their website (not consumer) and it seems to be for companies that had data breaches.

I've done freezing me credit with all the reporting agencies. I did everything online without any issue. TU charged me $5.00. Other agencies did it for free. Now, I need to buy house without mortgage. Hate the hackers.

Finally, success! After having successfully placed credit freezes for my wife and I on 4 out 5 credit agencies, the only one I was having no luck with was Experian. The Experian website kept failing with the well known message "We were unable to honor your request to place a security freeze on your personal credit report based on the information you entered". And whenever I tried the Experian phone number (888-397-3742) I would get a similar automated rejection after following the voice menu path 2-2-1-2, which requests no personal information up to that point. I was using my home phone, and I figured they could only be rejecting my attempt based on caller-ID, so I decided to try my mobile phone. SUCCESS!

One annoyance to be aware of: I hesitated a moment (like 3 seconds) while entering my CC number to pay the $10 (in my state) fee. The system timed out and ended my session after several minutes of slow and painful voice-system torture. My 2nd attempt was successful. Make sure you are prepared to enter your SSN, DOB and CC numbers without much delay!

I also was able to successfully place credit freezes at the other 4 agencies, but no matter what I tried, Experian wouldn't budge online. Attempted to submit the request through their separate upload form, but that is also broken. Finally gave up, and just called them. The first one went through automation, for the second freeze they transferred me to an agent.

I've had no luck setting up a security freeze online, nor by phone for my spouse even though mine went through successfully. Others have suggested a series of phone tree options but I never am presented with such options that would make sense. Others have also described calling and getting transferred to a person and it was taken care of over the phone that way, however every time I select options that are related to setting a security freeze it simply tells you to mail in your info and hangs up. Are people selecting unrelated options simply to get a live person? What am I missing here?